


moving [out/in/on]

by sunwukong



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 04:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4125742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunwukong/pseuds/sunwukong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuusei, Jack, and a new apartment with the same old ghosts.</p><p>--</p><p>squint for the ships, but you won't have to squint that hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	moving [out/in/on]

Yuusei packs up the computers last when he finally runs out of excuses to stay in the old garage. He gathers the cables with twist ties to keep them from tangling, swaddles the monitors in layers of bubble wrap, and hauls the towers into the passenger seat of the truck that Saiga had called in a favor to borrow. (Yuusei had protested—he could rent a moving van like a normal person—but he’d never have refused in earnest.)

At the new apartment, sleek and empty except for the pile of cardboard boxes pushed against the wall of the living room, he can’t decide how to set the computers back up. He checks his work laptop at the kitchen counter, nursing a cup of instant coffee and reading through his inbox before he heads to the lab every day. When he needs a second display, he pulls one monitor out of its bubble wrap and hunches over it, cross-legged on the floor.

He puts together a bed frame after two weeks of sleeping on a futon, chooses two compact couches for the living room and four high chairs for the kitchen counter.

He builds a corner desk and thinks about how to keep his wires organized, but something in his chest squeezes when he goes to take them out of their boxes. It settles into an ache, dull in his ribcage, telling him _not yet, it’s too soon, it would be like forgetting._

The corner desk stays bare.

* * *

Three months after the move, Yuusei’s clothes are half hung in the closet, half on the floor; there’s a new rice cooker and water boiler on the unstained counter.

_I’ll be staying in a hotel next time I’m in Neo Domino._

He hears from Jack, who never messages Yuusei unless it’s to tell him he’ll be in town (inevitably less than a day before his arrival) and sometimes not even then. Yuusei doesn’t mind. It’s comfortable, a two-way radio silence. And it means he’s used to reading between the lines: _Crow told me you moved out of the garage. I don’t know what your new place is like. I don’t know if there’s room for me, and I don’t want to ask._

Yuusei types back: _Then what am I going to do with this guest bedroom?_

* * *

Three months after that, there’s a matching dishware set already collecting dust in the cabinets and hardcover books about industrial design fighting for space on the coffee table. Yuusei shuffles through the apartment lobby doors at 11 PM, turns to nod at the woman managing the front desk for the night shift, and trips over a suitcase.

“You made me wait.” Jack’s voice echoes in the empty lobby, and Yuusei finds his footing in time to watch Jack stand up from one of the waiting chairs, arms crossed. Yuusei laughs, brain still so muddled from staring at research and test results and statistics all night that any other reaction isn’t worth the effort.

“Did Martha give you my address?” he asks, holding out a hand for Jack’s suitcase.

Jack ignores the gesture and the question. “I thought that moving into a normal residence meant you might start working normal hours,” he says.

“We can make an extra key for next time,” says Yuusei, and a comforting warmth blooms in his chest at the thought.

Jack scoffs, but follows Yuusei to the elevator all the same.

When they step through the door of the apartment, Yuusei turns on the light and watches Jack make his appraisal of the place. He files away a mental reminder to buy a coffee machine and points Jack to the second bedroom, but Jack stops in the middle of the living room. Yuusei follows the line of his gaze to where the unpacked boxes and computer towers sit next to the untouched corner desk.

“How long has it been? You still haven’t unpacked?”

Yuusei swallows but meets Jack’s eyes when he turns, demanding an answer.

“I’ve been busy,” he says. Jack’s jaw clenches. But he doesn’t press (for now—because it’s Jack, Yuusei knows it’s just for now). Instead he stalks the rest of the way to the bedroom to put away his suitcase.

* * *

The next evening Yuusei comes home early, steps out of his loafers, and finds Jack glaring at the corner desk. Yuusei had woken up that morning to the sound of rush hour and stared at the wall for 10 minutes before deciding he couldn’t fall back asleep and heading to the lab. Jack had still been asleep.

“Set this up.” Jack makes a sweeping gesture at the pile of electronics.

“I can do it later,” Yuusei says.

“You can do it now,” Jack says.

Yuusei’s hands are cold, an ache in his fingers that matches the one settling in his chest. “I don’t need it right now. It can wait.”

“Yuusei, just set up your _fucking_ computer junk!” Jack snarls.

Yuusei stares, at a loss for words but resolute in his refusal. Outside, a distant siren blares into the early evening and traffic speeds by on the street. Jack clenches and unclenches his fists. He says, “I’ll help.”

“Jack, you don’t know the first thing about—”

“ _I’ll. Help._ ”

And for all of Yuusei’s quiet enduring, he could never stop Jack from _doing_ , so he accepts the coil of cords that Jack shoves into his hands after ripping the tape off the first box.

“What do I do with this,” says Jack. It’s a dare, a challenge.

Yuusei’s hands shake as he unwinds the cord. His mouth feels dry, but he points to another box and says, “It goes with one of the hard drives in there.” Jack opens the box, pulls out the contents one by one until Yuusei nods at him to stop.

Jack tosses the next cord at Yuusei. He catches it in unsteady hands, squeezing despite the cold ache in his joints. Still, this time, Jack doesn’t have to ask.

* * *

The sun has set by the time Jack empties the last box and pushes it away from the corner desk. Yuusei surveys the workspace, checking that each power strip plugged into another power strip eventually plugs into the wall.

Crouching, he runs his fingers over “on” switches and the dust of half a year of neglect. He takes a breath and switches each tower and monitor on one at a time.

Stepping back, Yuusei feels the hum of the hardware before he hears it, spreading through his feet to the tips of his fingers, settling into his chest next to his heartbeat. He closes his eyes, the glow of the monitor set-up lingering for a moment before fading into nascent lines of code.

He thinks about how another engineer must be working on the Wheel of Fortune. Thinks about the last time he looked at his own engine, about how the Yuusei Go wouldn’t stand a chance on the circuit now.

He sits down at his corner desk.

* * *

In the morning, Yuusei wakes up in his bed. He doesn’t remember making it to his room, and wonders if he fell asleep at his desk.

He stays under the covers listening to the sound of the shower running, and underneath that, the soft hum of idle computers. Closes his eyes again and savors the warmth of knowing there’s another person going about life close to him.

He remembers that there was a line of code he couldn’t figure out last night, that he’d stared at until his vision had blurred in the dim light. And he finds himself smiling at the thought of getting back to it, untangling it, and moving on to the next.


End file.
